Physician Ehr Adoption Showing An Upward Curve

By Author: Jaun Paul
Total Articles: 53
Comment this article

Last year, physician office EHR adoption increased only slightly. Was the apprehension about achieving meaningful use have any say in this?


These days, EHR adoption is going on in full swing as is indicative from two bits of information from the last few weeks. The first indicator is that EHR-vendor Allscripts is making some serious cash. It recorded revenues of nearly $170 million for the quarter ending November 30, 2009, which is a 30 percent increase from the same quarter in 2008 ($128.6 million).


In fact Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman believes that 2010 will be the year of the EHR, in which one can expect to see significant acceleration in the adoption and utilization of healthcare information technology to improve quality and reduce cost. This is a once in a lifetime market opportunity, driven by ARRA.


The second indicator is that EHR adoption among office-based physicians is slightly up compared to last year. As per preliminary ...
... data, 43.9 percent of physicians had adopted full or partial EHR/EMR systems. This is much higher than most physician EHR estimates we normally get to see.


Year 2007-2008 witnessed a much bigger increase 34.8 percent to 41.3 percent compared to 2008-2009 (41.3 percent to 43.9 percent). The reason behind the smaller increase last year could have been anxiety about achieving ‘meaningful use' and offices waiting for clarification before purchasing EHR last year.


And now with the proposed HITECH rule setting criteria for meaningful use, we might see the EHR adoption pick up even more.

Provides free weekly newswire of healthcare IT technology and offers advanced Learning Opportunities about EHR adoption in EHR technology for health care executives.